Ukraine becomes associate member of CERN

Ukraine and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) signed on Thursday an agreement for the provision of an associate membership of this organization to Ukraine.

Deputy Premier Kostiantyn Hryschenko signed this agreement on behalf of Ukraine, the press service of the State Agency on Science, Innovations and Informatization of Ukraine reported.

Head of the State Agency Volodymyr Semynozhenko said that the signing of the agreement represented the scientific integration of Ukraine into the European Union.

"We can say that this is the first step towards Ukraine's acquisition of associate membership of the EU. We have made a significant contribution to the development of European science," the agency's press service quoted Semynozhenko as saying.

According to him, Ukrainian physicists are well-known at CERN, due to their successful participation in the project of the Large Hadron Collider.

Semynozhenko also said that 47 Ukrainian scientists were currently working at CERN.

He said that Ukraine intended to strengthen cooperation with CERN.

CERN is an inter-governmental organization, one of the leading research centers of the European community, and the world's largest laboratory of high energy physics. The organization is based in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border. Ukraine started cooperation with CERN in 1993.